Hawk of May (Down the Long Way 1)

by Gillian Bradshaw

  Agravain scowled. “And for that you take his hand? You should merely have repaid him double, and not demeaned yourself. Why in God’s name had you nothing to pay with?”

  “In God’s name,” I said. “Have you become a Christian, Agravain?”

  “God forbid!” he said, grinning, then frowned again. “You should not let commoners become so familiar. They are always wanting favors, then.”

  I sighed. “Sion is a good man. I was lucky to have met him.”

  Agravain’s frown deepened, but he shrugged. “Well, you can choose your own friends.”

  “I think he is capable of that,” said a quiet voice on the other side. Bedwyr drew his horse in besides us. “Come. We must hurry. I do not want Arthur to have to wait for his victory feast at Camlann.”

  Agravain spurred his horse and I urged Sion’s mare obediently, though she did not like the brisk trot with the heavy cart. We fell silent again, and Cei came up and rode beside Bedwyr, giving me interested looks.

  “You destroyed Cerdic’s raiding party, then?” I asked, finally thinking of something to say. “That is good, but surprising. I would have thought his parties move too quickly for even the Pendragon to reach them before they returned to Sorviodunum.”

  “It was more chance than foresight,” said Bedwyr. “We were returning from fighting the East Saxons when we heard news of this raiding party from Sorviodunum, and we caught them only just in time.”

  “That was a thing Cerdic hadn’t planned for,” said Cei with satisfaction. “They say that that sorcerer of his, Aldwulf Flamddwyn, has been telling him where Arthur is. But even Aldwulf cannot predict where Arthur will be.”

  “Nor can we,” said Agravain. “Even when we are with him. He is a great king, Gwalchmai. It shames me that ever Father fought him. We should have made alliance with him, and not with those Northern cattle.”

  “Now, that is true,” said Cei, “and it would have saved you time, as well.”

  “But your brother must believe this, too, Agravain,” Bedwyr added, “Otherwise he would not be seeking to serve Arthur.”

  Agravain frowned again. “What were you expecting to do, Gwalchmai? Arthur takes only warriors and a few doctors with the warband. You could stay in Camlann, I suppose, if you are not planning to go home.”

  “I cannot go back to the islands,” I said. “But you, Agravain, how is it that you are fighting alongside Arthur’s own warband? And gaining fame in it, as well? I have not heard any news of you, not since you were taken hostage.”

  “Och, that,” said Agravain. “That came of itself. The High King was kind to me, after Father and our kinsmen had gone; and I had some admiration for him already, because of his skill at war, though I hated him for an enemy.”

  “But he let you fight beside his men?”

  “Not at once.” Agravain suddenly grinned at Cei. “This hard-handed lout of a Dumnonian decided to give me the sharp edge of his tongue, and that is a sharp edge indeed. I understood little enough of it at the time, for my British was still not good, but I understood enough. And so one day, when he and the Family, returned from a raid, were at Camlann, and he began to say, ‘The only worse men than the Saxons are the Irish,’ I up and hit him. So he hit back, and we were at it like hammer and anvil. Only, as you see, he is bigger than I, and got the better of me.”

  “Only you would not stop fighting for all that,” Cei put in. “Gloria Deo! I was certain I was fighting with a madman.”

  “And when he knocked me down for the fifth time, and I tried to get up again, and had to hold on to a table to do it, he said, ‘You mad Irishman, don’t you know enough to stop fighting when you are beaten?’ and I said, ‘I do not; and I wish my father had not either.’ And he said, ‘You’re a wild barbarian, but by God, you’ve heart enough. I take back my words,’ and helped me up. And when the High King next wanted him to lead a raid, Cei said, ‘Let me take Agravain, then. It is the only way to keep him out of trouble.’”

  “Not,” added Bedwyr, “that Cei wanted to keep out of trouble. On the contrary, there is nothing he likes better, and he was the more pleased that he had a friend to make it with him.”

  “So I have fought for the High King,” Agravain concluded. “And it is well and good. Father has sent messages, from time to time, saying that he is pleased to hear that I fight well. But what of yourself, Gwalchmai? For three years I have heard nothing of you, not from the islands, nor from Britain nor from anywhere else. Where have you been?”

  I looked away, unsure. I owed it to my brother to tell him the truth, but what he would do with that truth I could not guess. Probably, refuse to believe it. Still, I would tell him. But how could I speak of Morgawse before Bedwyr and Cei? Agravain would have to believe what I said of her—he knew her just well enough for that—but it was not for the ears of others.

  “Perhaps you should begin at the beginning,” suggested Agravain when the silence became awkward.

  “There is time enough for you to tell the tale,” Bedwyr added, “It is miles yet to Camlann.”

  I studied Bedwyr. Here, I realized, was another man who served the Light, but one completely different from Sion. He had seen at the first that I had had dealings with the Otherworld, too, and his eyes were still doubtful. Now Cei too was giving me a peculiar look. Only Agravain noticed nothing.

  “Agravain,” I said, “I can tell you. But not now.”

  “By the sun and the wind!” exclaimed Agravain, using his old oath, which touched me hard with memories, “You have just returned from the dead, as far as I know, and you wish me to wait patiently and make light conversation?”

  “That might be best,” I said. “It is a family matter.”

  “I have another family now,” replied Agravain, waving his hand towards the warriors around him. “And what concerns me concerns them.”

  “If you wish to join us,” Bedwyr commented, “you will have to tell us as well. There is no vengeance taken for past blood feuds or such once a man has joined the Family.”

  “Gwalchmai join the Family?” asked Agravain. “That is as unlikely as his engaging in a blood feud. He is not a skilled warrior.”

  Bedwyr looked thoughtful. “Perhaps.”

  “I am not,” I said. “I hope to serve the Pendragon in some other way.”

  “Arthur does not take many men with us,” said Cei, “but he might make an exception, if you can ride well.”

  “He was the best rider in the islands,” said Agravain. “He can join us in some fashion, then, if not as a warrior?”

  “That is up to our lord Arthur,” Bedwyr said.

  “But if you wish to, we have a right to know what you have done,” Cei told me. “Shortly after Agravain joined us, he had a message from the Ynysoedd Erch saying that his brother had ridden off a cliff, and he went into mourning for weeks. Anything that affects him thus is my concern too. So, tell us now.”

  I looked from him to Bedwyr to Agravain, then shrugged. “As you wish. But it is a strange story, and I do not know whether you will believe me. And there are things Agravain and I can understand that you may not. I am not a skilled fighter, to be involved in duels and blood feuds, but this is a matter of Darkness…”

  The doubt in Bedwyr’s eyes flamed in suspicion. Agravain gave a start, like a frightened horse shying. “Then it does have something to do with Mother,” he whispered.

  “It does,” I agreed. “Would you prefer that I wait, brother?”

  He began to nod, stopped again. “I had heard that you went riding at night, on Samhain. By the cliffs. It was a mad thing to do, but like you, and I had heard also that…” he trailed off, and I saw that he too was familiar with my old reputation for sorcery. Cei and Bedwyr glanced at each other, the same thought in their minds.

  Then Cei snorted. “Your mother, the famous witch, and an old pagan festival, and this is a reason for disappearing? I do not believe in such things. I did not think you believed either, Agravain.”

  “I don’t,” said Agr
avain. But he did not look at Cei. He believed, well enough. It was impossible to know Morgawse and not believe in her power.

  “Shall I go on?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Agravain. “Cei and Bedwyr are also my brothers now; they have the right to hear.”

  Well, if that was how it was to be, I would tell the tale to the three of them. But I didn’t want to. It would be painful enough to tell to kinsmen, let alone strangers. “Agravain,” I said, “what did you hear of my death?”

  “Only what I said, that you went riding at night on Samhain, and your horse was found by the cliff next day, riderless. No one could expect you to turn up two and a half years later, eighteen miles from Camlann, dressed like a servant and picking fights with Cei—couldn’t you have chosen someone else? He’s the best foot fighter in the Family.”

  Cei grinned and nodded his agreement with this.

  “And you have grown! It has been so long since I saw you—you are seventeen now, and the last time was what—more than three years ago. Come, explain how it happened.”

  I drove the cart in silence for a while, trying to decide where to begin, and praying that my brother would accept the story. “You recall a certain summer, years ago, when I first began learning Latin?” I asked finally.

  He thought back. “Yes. A wise thing to do; they speak a deal of it here, and I still cannot understand a word of it.”

  “That is where it began. We had a quarrel over my learning such a thing, and you called me a bastard and said that I was trying to learn sorcery.”

  Agravain looked surprised. “I did? I don’t remember that.”

  “I suppose you wouldn’t. It didn’t mean much to you. But I was foolish, and it meant a deal to me. I determined to truly learn sorcery.” I lifted my eyes from the road and met Agravain’s hot stare. “And I am certain that you did hear of those matters.”

  He shifted uneasily, flushing, and looked away from me. He nodded. I looked back at the road.

  “So I went to our mother, and she taught me many things, all terrible.”

  Agravain’s hands had tightened on the reins, and now his horse snorted, trying to stop and shying at the unsteady jerk. He quickly relaxed his grip and edged the horse back to the cart.

  “She is very powerful, Agravain,” I said urgently. “She is much stronger, probably, than any other on earth, so much that she is scarcely human now. At first she hated her father, and her half-brother Arthur, and then all Britain, and I think now she hates all the universe, and wishes to drown the world in Darkness.”

  Agravain’s horse started again, laying its ears back, catching fear from its rider. Bedwyr dropped behind the cart, then drove his horse up beside Agravain’s, to steady it. Agravain closed his eyes for a moment, his face strained and white. “No,” he whispered. “She can’t truly want that.”

  “She does,” I said, wanting to reach out to him, but not quite daring. “You know her. Think.”

  He turned his face away, shoulders shaking a little. For a long time we rode in silence, the hooves of the horses clattering on the causeway, the cart jolting in the sunlight. The marsh reeds shook in the wind. Cei was puzzled, Bedwyr withdrawn.

  After a long time, shortly before we reached the main road, Agravain’s hands slowly relaxed and he nodded. “It is true,” he said, in a choked tone. “I would rather not think of her, Gwalchmai. But it is true. By the sun, why?”

  I shook my head. He expected no answer.

  “Go on,” said Agravain, after another stretch of silence, when we had turned south on the main road. I noted that he controlled himself better. Three years before he would either have started a quarrel with me or driven his horse ahead at its fastest gallop.

  “I said that our mother hated Arthur. She has cursed him many times, but her magic does not seem to work on him. Two and a half years ago, on Samhain, she wanted to try some other spell to kill him.”

  “God,” said Agravain in a strangled tone. “What affair is it of hers? What harm has he done her?”

  “She hates him. You know that. And I think every black sorcerer in the West is seeking of the death of Arthur. Aldwulf Fflamddwyn certainly is.”

  “What?—och, I know she hates the High King. But can she…?”

  “I do not think she can,” I said.

  He stared at me earnestly for a moment, wanting reassurance, then nodded, relaxing. “Laus Deo, as they say here in Britain. But, by the sun, she should be destroyed. Someone should kill her; though she is my own mother, still I say that she should die.”

  “Perhaps she should,” I replied. “But who could kill her? She wanted me, and Medraut, to be there that night…”

  “I had heard that Medraut…but I was sure that was false. No one was altogether certain that Medraut was…and it is unlike him.”

  “It is true, though,” I said. “Though I did not know it till that night.” Again I thought of Medraut with pain. She must have devoured him by now, sucking out all his innocence and love for life, replacing it with hatred and bitterness and more ambition. And there was nothing I could do.

  Agravain looked at me miserably. He had been trying for years, I think, to forget Morgawse, as he had tried for years to ignore her. But he accepted this now.

  “Do you remember Connall?” I asked. “The Dalraid, the one in our father’s warband?”

  “Of course. A brave man, and loyal, and a good fighter, as I well know from campaigning with him in Britain. The first time I ever went whoring he took me back in Din Eidyn.”

  “Morgawse was going to kill him,” I said. “And, Agravain, I could not endure it. Not him and Medraut also. I killed him quickly and fled, and she tried to kill me.”

  He looked sick. “This is madness. Why can’t people fight with swords, simply, instead…”

  “People never fight simply with swords,” Bedwyr broke in. “Even you and Cei do not do that.”

  Agravain paused, blinking at Bedwyr. “What does that mean?”

  “No one takes up the sword without a reason. Even love of battle is a kind of reason. In the end, the reasons are never simple, and they are as important as the sword itself.”

  “Philosophy,” said Cei. “You read too much of it, Bedwyr.”

  “The reasons remain important,” said Bedwyr imperturb-ably. “Go on, Gwalchmai.”

  “Our mother set a curse on me, and I fled from it, without thinking where I was going, until I came to Llyn Gwalch—that is the place on the cliff where I spent so much time, when we were children, Agravain—and let the horse go. The demon couldn’t follow me there. I don’t know why, except that I once believed in the place, and the Light…” I stopped. How could I tell Agravain about that? He could not possibly understand. I did not understand it myself.

  “Our mother could not kill the Pendragon,” I began, “because Arthur fights against the Darkness, with the force that is also against the Darkness. When I was trapped there, I called on that force, because I was very wearied with the Darkness and hated it. And an ancestor of ours, who serves the Light, sent aid.”

  “An ancestor?” asked Agravain in confusion. “This becomes more difficult as you go on. What ancestor?”

  “Lugh of the Long Hand.”

  He shook his head again. I saw that I was beginning to lose him. “I do not know what to think of this, Gwalchmai. If anyone else came to me with a story like this, I would laugh at him. But you…”

  “I think that you must believe him,” Bedwyr interrupted softly. “I do not know that I have ever seen a man so deeply touched by the Otherworld.”

  Agravain glared at his friend. “There is nothing wrong with my brother. True, he is a poor warrior, but that gives you no right to insult him.”

  “I am not insulting him.” Bedwyr seemed mildly amused. “And I think he can look after his own honor. Gwalchmai, go on.”

  “Lugh sent a boat from Tir Tairngaire, at the urging of the Light…”

  “What is this ‘Light’ you keep talking about?” asked Agr
avain irritably. “The sun?”

  “I think I understand,” Bedwyr said slowly. “In a sense, the sun. As the sun is a type of Light, since all other lights are ultimately derived from it, by reflection or by dependence with the rest of the world, so the Light which your brother speaks of is the source of good and of illumination, and other goods are known only in it. Yes, Cei, I did read it in a book of philosophy. But am I right?”

  “I…I think so,” I said, astonished. “Yes, if I understand you. I do not know any philosophy. I know only that the Light sent a boat, and I embarked, and it took me to the Islands of the Blessed.”

  “Oh God!” said Cei, at last releasing his growing anger. “How many have made that claim? And how many have been to those islands? None, because those islands do not exist outside the songs of poets! Agravain, you are my brother, but this brother of yours is another matter. He has been spinning gossamer from clouds of lies this whole while, and you’ve been taking it for true yarn. But I can’t. When you have had enough, I will be riding up ahead.”

  “He is not lying, Cei,” said Bedwyr.

  But Cei only gave me a look of disgust. “No, indeed. He is merely giving a poetic form to the concepts of philosophers, and discoursing upon the summum bonum or whatever you call it. This is a fine enough tale for Breton mystics and philosophers, Bedwyr, but I am a Dumnonian and a Roman, and I want no more of this.” He spurred his horse to a gallop and left us, reining in beside some other warrior.

  “Go on,” said Agravain. “I will listen.”

  But he was beginning to agree with Cei. “I am not lying,” I said.

  “I do not say that you would, deliberately,” said Agravain, apparently deciding to be very honest. “But after what had passed, you could easily have had some kind of dream.”

  “I thought it was a dream, when I woke up and found myself in Britain,” I said. “But I still had this.” I touched Caledvwlch’s hilt.

  Agravain looked at it, his brows knitting. “A sword. I noticed it earlier. It looked to be worth a good amount. You think it was given to you in the Land of Promise?”

  “It was, by Lugh, from the Light. When I woke up southeast of here, returning from Tir Tairngaire, I knew that I had not been dreaming or gone mad, because it lay beside me. Its name is Caledvwlch.”